After years of limited opportunities to buy and sell casinos, the topsy-turvy economy has opened the door for entrepreneurs to make unprecedented offers for choice properties in Las Vegas. With four of Las Vegas’ six largest — and debt-ridden — gaming giants scrambling for cash, opportunistic buyers are waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. With some potential sellers, that moment may be now, while they are attempting to negotiate with lenders…

Galveston – The odds are against proposed legislation slotting a Las Vegas-style destination resort casino in Galveston, legislators and local pundits say. “I haven’t handicapped it yet,” said state Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston. “I think the votes are probably there in the Senate, but I’m not sure they are in the House.” Eiland said a constitutional amendment would be a better place to start a battle for casino gambling, not legislative proposals enabling casinos.

Many of the capital’s gambling clubs are now operating as restaurants or coffee shops following the government’s outright ban on all venues offering slot machines and electronic gaming machines. The Ministry of Economy and Finance issued its directive on Wednesday following an order from Prime Minister Hun Sen. All valid gaming licences to operate betting machines were ruled invalid from that date, ostensibly to protect public morals.

Galveston, Texas (Reuters) – First came Hurricane Ike, then the tidal wave from the U.S. economic collapse hit. The steamy Texas island city of Galveston, an historic port known for palm trees, Victorian buildings and shipping cattle and oil to the world, now finds its economy clinging to a life raft. Some leaders believe the only hope for the city of about 45,000 — down about a third from its pre-hurricane population — is to legalize gambling and open casinos that would lure in tourists.

The California Gambling Control Commission is retreating from an aggressive directive demanding that Indian tribes give state inspectors „prompt access“ to tribal casinos and financial records. In October, after nearly two years of arguing over who is minding the store in California’s USD 8 billion tribal gambling industry, the state commission voted to assert its oversight authority over Indian casinos.

Casino hotel towers are beginning to loom over the landscape. But that landscape isn’t in Kansas. It’s in Oklahoma, where tribal casinos are outgrowing their truck-stop image. Several have become the lavish destination resorts Kansas thought it was getting when lawmakers passed an expanded gaming bill in 2007. While Kansas waits for a new round of proposals after the sinking economy wiped out casino plans in Sumner County and elsewhere…

Casinos are a terrific source of good-paying, benefit-rich, blue-collar jobs, the Labor Resource Center of the University of Massachusetts at Boston has found. The center’s new report – “Gaming in Massachusetts: Can Casinos Bring ‘Good Jobs’ to the Commonwealth?” – finds that for workers without a college education, casinos and their related enterprises pay higher salaries and provide more generous benefits than non-gaming jobs.

Card rooms in Washington already get punished when they allow people under 18 to gamble. Now they say it’s time for the kids to get in trouble, too. A bill in the Legislature would make it a civil infraction for a minor to gamble, creating penalties similar to those for underage drinking. The state Senate voted unanimously Friday to approve the bill. It now must pass through the House and be signed by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

Chilean casinos could be forced to inform about the addiction that games of chance can cause when they become a frequent practice, because some senators have pointed that the inauguration of new gambling venues could increase cases of people with gambling problems. Senator Ricardo Nuñez has just presented in Chile a modification to the norm that forces these operators to „show warnings in casinos about gambling addiction”.

Through the task of the control and formalization of the activity of casinos and slots, the Ministry of Foreign Commerce and Tourism (Mincetur), achieved, during 2008, a record collection of USD 54.4 million. Last year, the monthly collection exceeded USD 5,132,433 in some months, considering that during 2006, the monthly collection of tax games was an average of USD 801,943.

The Cyprus Hotel Managers’ Association (Pasydixe) threw this week their weight behind gambling institutions on the island, saying casinos of the highest quality are greatly beneficial to any country in the world. Expressing their approval for the creation of casinos in Cyprus in an announcement, the association said it “supports without reservations the immediate enrichment of the island’s tourism sector with pioneering and imaginative works”.